Good morning everyone. This isn’t going to be one of my typical happy posts today. I am posting this in hopes of helping somebody going through what I went through this past weekend. Please know that this post may be graphic and is not suitable for all readers.

Please feel free to leave comments below about your experience with a missed miscarriage. I found it very comforting to read about other peoples experiences while I was going through it myself, but I found that there wasn’t a TON of information on it as I believe not many people talk about it.

If you just want to read about my experience with Misoprostol, please scroll down about half way through this post.

**DISCLAMER: all opinions are those of my own, I am not a doctor and would recommend speaking with your doctor if you have any concerns.

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I will give you a bit of a back story to my pregnancy. When I found out I was pregnant, I was OVER THE MOON excited! My husband and I had been trying to get pregnant and we felt so fortunate that it only took us 4 cycles of actively trying to see that positive pregnancy test!

I was doing everything right; I went to see my doctor, I was eating healthy, taking my prenatal vitamins, not drinking caffeine, staying active, and I even researched what types of products I should avoid using (make up, cleansers, body lotions etc.) during pregnancy. In the weeks following our positive result, things never felt quite right to me. I was experiencing some symptoms, like sore breasts and fatigue but I never experienced the nausea that so many pregnant women talk about. My mom told me that she never experienced nausea with her pregnancies either so I just brushed it off, thinking that I was going to be one of the lucky ones who felt great throughout the entire pregnancy.

Around week 9, my symptoms started to decline. My breasts weren’t as sore and I felt like I had my energy back. I had talked to a few friends who now have healthy babies, and one mentioned that all of her symptoms disappeared at week 10, so I tried to stay positive, but something still felt off.

On Saturday July 22nd I started experiencing some spotting when I went to the bathroom. At that point I was 10 weeks 6 days pregnant.

The spotting was very light, what I would typically experience a day or two before my period starts. I was obviously concerned, but since it was the weekend and my doctors office didn’t open until Monday morning, I decided to take to google. Most of the articles I read said that spotting is quite normal during pregnancy but after reading many different opinions I came to the conclusion that spotting is considered common during pregnancy, but it should never be considered normal.

I called my doctor first thing Monday morning and he was able to squeeze my in that afternoon. My husband came with me and we were nervously sitting in his office waiting to be seen. He asked me a series of questions, but in the end didn’t seem concerned, which gave us a bit of hope. He decided to send me for an ultrasound anyways just for my peace of mind (even though, I had my first ultrasound booked for that coming Friday).

Luckily, I was able to get in for an ultrasound the following morning. Sitting in the waiting room was torture. I knew something was wrong. I had read about missed miscarriage in the past and I just had a gut feeling that it was what was happening to me.

My husband and family were all being so supportive, telling me that everything was going to be fine and that I was going to go in and hear the heartbeat for the first time.

As I lay there on the table waiting for the ultrasound, I told the tech that I was really nervous. She started the ultrasound and asked when the first day of my last period was. I told her May 8th. As soon as she said “Are you sure?” I knew that my worst fear was coming true. She said “I am only seeing a 6 week embryo, maybe your dates are off.” She had me empty my bladder and did an internal ultrasound to see if she could find a heartbeat because the baby was measuring so small. I knew she wasn’t going to find one. I knew my dates were right. I had my first positive pregnancy test on June 1st, so there was no way my dates were off.

She didn’t find a heart beat, but knowing how nervous I was, she was trying to stay positive. She kept telling me that my dates were probably off and that it was probably too soon to hear a heartbeat, saying that the baby could have been in a weird position making it hard to hear.

She was really sweet and told me to stay positive and wished me luck as I got dressed. She said that my doctor would receive the results by the afternoon.

I went to the waiting room and got my husband, all while trying to stay calm. As soon as we got to the parking lot I broke down. My heart was broken. I already considered myself a mom. I was planning the nursery. I had started a baby registry. I was picturing our life with a baby.

Waiting for my doctor to call felt like an eternity. I knew what he was going to say because I spent the entire day on the internet, but somehow I was holding onto some hope that maybe the tech was right. Maybe my dates were off. He called and confirmed that the pregnancy was not viable and it hit me like a truck. He was very comforting, telling me that it was nothing that I did wrong, that it happens often. He told me that the best option would be to wait to miscarry naturally, but if I wanted to, they could intervene. He told me my options and gave me some time to process it all.

By Thursday, waiting for the inevitable to happen was killing me. Not knowing what to expect or when to expect it was beginning to take a real toll on my emotions, so I decided to call my doctor and ask for the medication that would help the process along.

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Here is where it is going to get a little graphic.

My doctor prescribed me Misoprostol on Friday morning and I decided that I would take them that afternoon. After scouring the internet for other peoples experiences with this medication, I came across a few blog posts that I found very helpful in preparing me for what I was about to experience. I will link them below.

I was pretty nervous and wasn’t really in the mood to eat but knew I should before I started the process – so I decided to make myself a giant protein shake with a protein powder, a ton of spinach (for iron), lots of fruit and orange juice, knowing that I was going to be losing a lot of blood.

At 3:30pm I inserted the 4 tablets. As bad as this sounds, it wasn’t hard for me to do. I wasn’t feeling much emotion. I didn’t feel sad, or scared. I feel like this was my body’s way of coping during this extremely emotional time.

I sat down on the couch and put a movie on.

By around 4:30 I started having very mild period cramps. I thought to myself; I can do this!

By about 5:30 the cramping was becoming very painful. I took some Advil and sat back down on the couch, trying to find a comfortable position. The cramping was pretty steady for about 2 hours, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I kept going to the bathroom to check if I had started bleeding, but nothing was happening yet.

At 7:30, the cramping was starting to subside a little bit so I decided to get up off the couch and walk around a little bit. As soon as I got up, I felt a big gush. I ran to the bathroom and the bleeding had definitely started.

I knew that I was going to experience a lot of bleeding, but honestly, nothing could have prepared me for just HOW MUCH blood there was going to be.

I was in the bathroom every 10 minutes at the beginning just to make sure I wasn’t bleeding through the heavy flow nighttime maxi pads I was wearing. The first hour wasn’t too bad. I would bleed a lot each time I sat down on the toilet, but nothing more than I expected.

At this point the cramping was pretty much gone and I was feeling up to eating, so my husband made me a grilled cheese and I ate some candy that my sweet friends had given to me.

At around 9:30, we decided to head up to bed to continue our movie marathon. This is when the bleeding got bad. I was in the bathroom every 20 minutes passing HUGE clots, and blood was pouring out each time I sat down. I went through three different pairs of pants in an hour.

By 10:30 the bleeding was still flowing very heavy. Every 10-20 minutes I was in the bathroom, and each time it would just pour out of me.

I had read that if I filled up 2 maxi pads an hour for 2 hours in a row that we should head to the hospital, so I kept that in the back of my mind. I was definitely filling up more than 2 an hour, and also passing a ton of blood each time I went to the bathroom but we opted not to go to the hospital because I was still feeling fine. I wasn’t light headed or anything so we just kept our eye on it and hoped that the bleeding would slow down soon.

Around 1:00am, the bleeding was still bad, but I wasn’t filling up the pads as quickly. I would still lose a lot of blood when I went to the bathroom, but I wasn’t going as often. I decided to try and lay down in between bathroom visits because I was obviously very tired at this point.

I got up about once an hour until 4:00am and each time blood would still be flowing quite heavily when I sat down, but I wasn’t filling my pads.

After my 4:00am bathroom visit, I slept until about 6:30am. I was still passing clots every couple hours, but the bleeding had lightening up quite a bit. We got up around 9am and by then the bleeding had slowed down drastically.

Throughout the day Saturday, I passed maybe 3 or 4 big clots, and a bit of blood each time I would go to the bathroom.

By Sunday, I was down to wearing just a panty liner, still passing some blood when I went to the bathroom.

Today (Monday), I am still having some bleeding but only what I would describe as first day period bleeding. Very light and usually only there when I wipe.

I have an appointment to see my doctor on Friday, and I assume he will send me for an ultrasound to make sure that everything passed out of me.

This was probably was of the most traumatic things I have ever experienced but I am so lucky to have such an amazing support system. My husband, my family and my friends were all there for me whenever I needed them. I am still feeling a little empty inside but I’m sure that will get better with time. My husband and I are hopeful that we can go on to have a healthy pregnancy as soon as my doctor says it is safe to try. We are so ready to start our little family!

I hope that by posting my story, I can at least help one other person going through the same situation. Just know, you are not alone. ❤

xox. -K

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Here are a couple of blog posts that I found helpful:

https://theveganinme.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/a-misoprostol-miscarriage/
http://babyburnham.blogspot.ca/2008/12/my-experience-with-cytotec-misoprostol.html